Journalist detained in Iran has deep ties to Bay Area

Updated 1:18 pm, Thursday, August 7, 2014

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Iranian American, Jason Rezaian, from San Rafael and filmmaker Nezam Manouchehri made a film together about Rezaian's visit to Iran.
7/18/05
Mike Kepka / The Chronicle

iranfilm22042_mk.JPG
Iranian American, Jason Rezaian, from San Rafael and filmmaker Nezam Manouchehri made a film together about Rezaian's visit to Iran.
7/18/05
Mike Kepka / The Chronicle

Photo: Mike Kepka, SFC

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A file picture shows Iranian-American Washington Post correspondent Jason Rezaian and his Iranian wife Yeganeh Salehi posing while covering a press conference at Iran's Foreign Ministry in Tehran, on September 10, 2013. Tehran's chief justice Gholamhossein Esmaili confirmed the arrest of Washington Post correspondent Jason Rezaian and his wife, also a journalist, the official IRNA news agency reported. Rezaian, 38, has been the Post correspondent in Tehran since 2012 and holds both American and Iranian citizenship, according to the newspaper and his wife is an Iranian who has applied for US permanent residency and works as a correspondent for The Nation newspaper based in the United Arab Emirates, the Post said. less

A file picture shows Iranian-American Washington Post correspondent Jason Rezaian and his Iranian wife Yeganeh Salehi posing while covering a press conference at Iran's Foreign Ministry in Tehran, on September ... more

Photo: Str, AFP/Getty Images

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A Nov. 6, 2013, photo shows Jason Rezaian, a Washington Post reporter, at the newspaper in Washington. Three Americans, including Rezaian, appear to have been detained in Iran, the newspaper said Thursday, July 24, 2014. The other two Americans, who have not yet been identified, work as freelance photojournalists. "We have received credible reports that Jason Rezaian of The Washington Post and his wife Yeganeh Salehi were detained on Tuesday evening in Tehran," the Post's foreign editor, Douglas Jehl, said in a statement. (AP Photo/The Washington Post, Zoeann Murphy) less

A Nov. 6, 2013, photo shows Jason Rezaian, a Washington Post reporter, at the newspaper in Washington. Three Americans, including Rezaian, appear to have been detained in Iran, the newspaper said Thursday, July ... more

Photo: Zoeann Murphy, Associated Press

Journalist detained in Iran has deep ties to Bay Area

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A Bay Area native and former Chronicle contributor is among four journalists believed to have been quietly detained by the Iranian government in Tehran this week, eliciting concern from friends and family in California who have been given little information about the situation.

Jason Rezaian, 38, who is from Marin County and was working in Iran as a reporter for the Washington Post, was taken into custody Tuesday with his wife, who is also a journalist, and two American photographers, according to the newspaper and the U.S. State Department.

The reason for their detention was not immediately clear, and Iran and the United States have not had formal diplomatic ties since the hostage crisis of 1979.

But the nation that U.S. officials have called a sponsor of terrorism has a history of holding Americans, including three UC Berkeley graduates who accidentally hiked across the Iraq-Iran border four years ago, ostensibly on suspicion of espionage.

"I don't know what to make of this whole thing," Reza Rezaian, Jason's second cousin, said Friday. He lives in San Rafael, where the two grew up. "Obviously, I hope that he gets out soon."

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Jason Rezaian has been the Washington Post's Tehran correspondent since 2012. Before that, he frequently traveled between the United States and Iran, working as a freelance writer for several magazines and newspapers, including The Chronicle.

Between 2005 and 2007, Rezaian wrote a blog for The Chronicle called "Inside Iran," which discussed the political and cultural affairs of the largely isolated nation.

"His goal really has been to bring his friends, or anyone who couldn't see Iran, the chance to do that," said Reza Rezaian. "He just loved the country."

Dual citizenship

Jason Rezaian holds both American and Iranian citizenship. He met his wife, Yeganeh Salehi, an Iranian citizen, while working in the Middle East. She is a correspondent for the National, a newspaper based in the United Arab Emirates.

Rezaian was expected to visit the Bay Area this month, his friends and family said. His brother, who could not be reached for comment Friday, lives in Mill Valley, and many of his extended family members live nearby.

Rezaian's late father, Taghi Rezaian, who immigrated to the U.S. from Iran in 1959, was a popular businessman who owned Persian rug stores in Mill Valley and Petaluma. His mother, who is from Chicago, moved from Marin County to Turkey after her husband's death, according to friends and family.

Jason Rezaian went to high school at Marin Academy in San Rafael, before attending the New School in New York, according to his LinkedIn account. He returned to the Bay Area to help his father sell rugs, but ultimately chose to commit more time to journalism.

A friend, Reza Marashi, who directs research for the National Iranian American Council in Washington, D.C., praised Rezaian's writing. He said it offered a fresh, multifaceted perspective on a nation that is sometimes pigeonholed as a U.S. antagonist dabbling with nuclear weapons.

"He described Iran as a country that happened to have a nuclear program rather than a nuclear program that was attached to a country," Marashi said.

One of Rezaian's recent Washington Post stories was about organized baseball in Iran. Rezaian himself, according to friends and family, is a big Oakland A's fan.

Omid Memarian, a freelance journalist based in New York, has known Rezaian since 2006. Memarian himself was arrested in Iran and detained for more than two months in 2003, when he was reporting in the country for the Iranian reformist newspaper Shargh.

Considered an optimist

"I think (Rezaian) was one of the optimists who was very hopeful about reporting from Iran," he said. "The authorities are showing him the opposite. Once you are a reporter in Iran, no matter what you are, you are always seen as a danger or a threat."

As for why Rezaian was arrested, Marashi said his instincts were telling him that it's "the first casualty of the extension to nuclear negotiations."

Iran has been in negotiations with six nations, including the United States, who seek to curb its uranium enrichment. The parties, however, failed to reach a deal before a June 20 deadline; they have since agreed to continue talks for four months.

"There are people in Iran who are hard-line and extremist that don't want these talks to succeed," he said. "That's why I think they are doing this. While I have no facts to demonstrate that this is the case, this is what my gut is telling me."

State Department officials said Friday that they were aware of reports that three American citizens had been detained but offered no details.

U.S. statement

"We are not able to comment further at this time due to privacy considerations," said a spokeswoman, Pooja Jhunjhunwala. "Our highest priority is the safety and welfare of U.S. citizens abroad."

The names of the two photojournalists said to be in Iranian custody have not been disclosed.

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists in New York, Iran detains more reporters than almost any other nation. The organization issued an appeal to Iran to release its most recent detainees.

"We call on Iranian authorities to immediately explain why Jason Rezaian, Yeganeh Salehi, and two other journalists have been detained, and we call for their immediate release," said spokesperson Sherif Mansour. "Iran has a dismal record with regard to its treatment of imprisoned journalists. We hold the Iranian government responsible for the safety of these four."

The three former UC Berkeley students - Shane Bauer, Sarah Shourd and Joshua Fattal - were detained in July 2009 while on a hiking expedition, then jailed in Tehran as alleged spies and used as political pawns.

Shourd was released after more than a year, and the others were freed in September 2011 in exchange for $1 million. Bauer had worked as a journalist.

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